“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17.20-23 (NIV)
Each one reach one! Bangladeshis love slogans. However, this one seems to come from a more individualistic society. I heard it last year when a supporting church asked me to write a meditation encouraging members “each one to reach one.” I wrote back and asked whether we might not be setting ourselves up to be disappointed -- is it conceivable to think that each one might reach one? Indeed, God sent One --His Son. But what makes anyone of us think that we, anyone or each one, could possibly reach one? It’s a daunting task unless we realize that mission is and always has been God’s before it becomes ours. Instead of wondering what kind of mission God has for me, we should be asking what kind of we God wants for His mission.
In my office I have a photograph of a statue of Christ in a cemetery. Christ’s eyes gaze heavenward and his arms are extended, reaching out as if to call the dead to life. But the Christ in the photo is handless - the cement hands have been broken or dislodged from His arms. My students often comment on these missing hands. I ask them, “Are we not the hands of Christ in the world, and, if we are, then where are we?” Are we lying in broken, crumbled bits on the ground? As if Christ’s hands have succumbed to the pressures of hurricanes and monsoons and crumbled into a hundred useless pieces?
God’s mission to the world is incomplete until we take up our part of the mission partnership and join hands. Not as solitary individuals going head-to-head with the world, but as a composite of parts working hand-in-hand in partnership – fingers, thumb and palm attached to the outreached arm of Christ. This is God’s mission. When we, His hands, are joined to the strong arms of Christ, we do not merely proclaim and preach truth, but we reveal the love of God that has come down to us.
Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (Jn 20.21). The “you” is plural. The one Father sends the one Son; the one Son sends the one and only church. Partnership is not just a mission strategy – it’s the theological bottom line.
For God’s mission is to become our mission, we must hang on to the “we” and the “our.” Otherwise the plural shifts to the word “mission” and we carry our missions separately. Being held together in complete unity is what makes the church the hands of Christ in the world. It also assures us that no one of us is in this alone, but that together, everyone might reach everyone. And the Love of God will be all in all.
Prayer:May the church be brought to complete unity to let the world know the love of God. Amen.
